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Tibet
is again the topic of conversation around the world. And this time it’s not the result of
some Hollywood movie, but rather the bloody clashes that have broken out
there between Tibetan protesters and Chinese police. While a lot of details are still
hazy as a result of a systematic attempt by Chinese authorities to
control the news coming out of the region, the clashes appear to have
begun with a series of demonstrations organized by Tibetans to mark the
49th anniversary of the failed 1959 uprising against
China. The demonstrations began
on March 10. By March 14 the
demonstrations appear to have evolved into riots in which non-ethnic
Tibetans were attacked, and numerous shops, cars and other properties,
including a mosque, were set on fire.
The
protests and clashes began in Tibet’s capital, Lhasa, but have since
spread to other parts of Tibet, as well as neighboring provinces of China
that have large ethnic Tibetan populations, such as Gansu, Qinghai and
Sichuan. There was even
reportedly a protest by Tibetan students in China’s capital of Beijing.
The
Chinese government’s response to these protests has in most places been
swift and brutal. Using tear
gas, electric cattle prods, and in some instances, guns, Chinese police
have forcefully broken up marches, broke into monasteries and raided
homes of suspected Tibetan independence activists. There have reportedly been numerous
beatings and a number of fatalities.
The Chinese government has so far admitted that 22 people have
died in the conflict, though claiming that most were non-Tibetans who
were burned alive or killed by rioting Tibetan mobs. On the other hand, the Dalai Lama’s
Tibetan government-in-exile claims that over 100 people have been
killed, most of them Tibetan protesters at the hands of the Chinese.
These
clashes have resulted in a flurry of denunciations of China by
capitalist governments around the world, and has led to some to call
for a Western boycott of the upcoming 2008 Summer Olympic games to be
held in Beijing. An array of
well known figures, from Richard Gere to Nancy Pelosoi have sided with
the Tibetan protesters, and denounced China’s rule over Tibet.
History of Tibet
Tibet
as a political entity began with a series of kingdoms starting in the 7th
century. Over the centuries
since then its borders have ebbed and flowed dramatically over the
mountains ranges and plateaus of central Asia. Almost from its inception though,
Tibet has had a complex relationship with China. For much of its history Tibet has
been a vassal state of China, afforded a large amount of autonomy in
exchange for recognition of the ultimate authority of the Chinese
emperor.
During
these early centuries Tibet became a Buddhist country. By the late 1300s its political and
spiritual leadership became consolidated in the form of the Dalai
Lama. The title and office of
Dalai Lama was awarded to a prominent Tibetan monk by a Mongolian ruler,
and since then the Dalai Lama has allegedly reincarnated 12 times (The
current Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, is considered the 14th
Dalai Lama because the first person to be given the title Dalai Lama, Sonam
Gyatso, is now considered to have been the 3rd Dalai Lama,
and the first and second Dalai Lama were given that title posthumously.).
While
many of the current Dalai Lama’s supporters in the West consider these
centuries to have been Tibet’s golden era, the reality couldn’t have
been farther from the truth for the majority of Tibet’s people. Under the Dalai Lama’s the majority
of Tibet’s people lived in grinding conditions of poverty in a highly
stratified social order. While
the top echelons of Tibet’s monastic orders, and the members of the 200
noble families, lived lives of luxury, the majority of peasants were
locked in serfdom, forced to grow food and provide labor for the
elites. Taxes were crushing,
and debt bondage was passed on from generation to generation. Serfs could not get married or move
without permission, were told what crops to grow and what animals to
raise, and could be separated from their families at the whim of their
lord. They could be sold or
traded. Any attempt by serfs to
leaves their owning lords, or in some other way buck the social order,
resulted in brutal corporal punishment, or death.
At
the top of this feudal like system the Dalai Lama literally towered
over the population in his massive 1000 room main palace, the
Potala. The Dalai Lama’s were
absolute rulers, and had the power of life and death over the Tibetan
people. They awarded massive
amounts of land, and thousands of accompanying serfs to their favorites
in a patronage system that would make many modern crooked politicians
blush. The commander of the Tibetan
army, for example, was awarded 4000 square kilometers and 3500
serfs. And this system remained
in place right up to the mid-twentieth century.
Following
the Chinese Revolution of 1912, in which the Chinese emperor was
overthrown and a republic was established, Tibet declared its
independence. While China
refused to recognize Tibet’s claim to independence, and no other
government extended official recognition to it either, China was unable
to assert any control as a result of the political turmoil, Japanese
invasions and civil war that engulfed the nation for the next four
decades.
Following
the victory of the Mao Zedong’s Communist Party in the Chinese
Revolution of 1949, China prepared to re-occupy Tibet. An army was sent in 1950 and
occupied several regions of Tibet, easily defeating the Tibetan
army. Stopping short of the
Lhasa, the Chinese demanded that the Dalai Lama recognize China’s
authority. Subsequently a deal
was made where Tibet would once again become part of China, but the
Dalai Lama could remain as a spiritual leader.
Initially
the Chinese occupation appears to have been rather popular, especially
among Tibet’s poor. Even the
current Dalai Lama has stated how well behaved the Chinese soldiers
initially were, and how well received a number of the reforms they
introduced were. Lands was
distributed to the peasants, the caste system was done away with, women
were granted equal rights, as were ethnic minorities, and secular
education and health care was introduced.
But
there reforms were naturally not popular among the deposed elites –
particularly the former large landowning monks and secular
nobility. It was this strata
that initiated a rebellion against Chinese rule. The rebellion began in 1956 in the
Chinese provinces neighboring Tibet that had large Tibetan
populations. In these provinces
the land reform was carried much more quickly and in a more complete
fashion, than in Tibet proper, were the Chinese took a more gradual
approach. Soon though the
rebellion spread to Tibet proper, and culminated in a major uprising in
1959.
The
Chinese were easily able to crush the rebellion, in part because of the
ineffective tactics used by the Tibetan rebels, but also because the
Tibetan population was divided in its response to the Chinese
occupation. It was during this
uprising that the current Dalai Lama fled to India, where he set up a
government-in-exile. Somewhere
between 80,000 to 100,000 Tibetans followed him into India, many of
them monks, where India has allowed them to set up their own
communities and institutions, and the Dalai Lama basically runs a
mini-state.
During
this time the U.S. imperialists seized the opportunity to cause turmoil
in Red China by aiding the Tibetan rebels. While the main uprising was crushed in 1959, in some
remote parts of Tibet insurgents continued the fight. Working closely with the Dalai
Lama’s government-in-exile, several hundred Tibetans were taken to Camp
Hale in Colorado and trained in guerilla warfare. These agents were then parachuted into
Tibet to hook up with resistance groups. Millions of dollars and significant amounts of arms were
also smuggled in, and a base of operations was set up for the fighters
across the border in the Mustang region of Nepal. The Dalai Lama also appealed for
help directly for his government-in-exile from the CIA and from the
anti-communist Nationalist Chinese government in Taiwan. The CIA responded by giving his
government tens of millions of dollars. This aid continued until the early 1970s, when the U.S. government
stopped aiding Tibetan rebels as part of its establishing diplomatic
relations with Mao’s China.
During
this time, the initial support that the Chinese government had enjoyed
from some layers of Tibet’s poor evaporated in the wake of ever increasing
repression. This repression
reached its most brutal peak during China’s Cultural Revolution, when
thousands of Tibetan monasteries and religious monuments were looted
and destroyed. But China’s
repressive policies continue, albeit in a slightly more subtle
ways. While many monasteries
and cultural monuments have been restored in hopes of attracting
Western tourists, China still places considerable restriction on
Tibet’s monks. More
significantly, ethnic Han Chinese have been allowed to move to Tibet
and now occupy many of the most important government posts and control
a large piece of Tibet’s trade and commerce (the number of ethnic Han
Chinese now living in Tibet is widely disputes, with the Dalai Lama
claiming they now outnumber ethnic Tibetans, and the Chinese government
claiming they only represent a small percentage of the overall
population).
Tibet Today
The
tensions that recently erupted into the ongoing protests happening
today in Tibet are the result of China’s repressive and exploitative
policies. While formally Tibet
in an “Autonomous Region” of China, Beijing exercises nearly total
control over Tibetan life. It’s
safe to say that the large majority of Tibetans are opposed to China’s
rule. Likewise, while on paper
the Tibetan economy is booming, and the standard of living is
improving, this boom has largely benefited ethnic Han Chinese. For the rest of the population,
development has been very uneven, and has often come at a high cultural
and ecological price. Tibetans
are in many ways prisoners in their own country.
Among
Tibetans though there appears to be a division between supporters of
the Dalai Lama and more militant activists. The Dalai Lama has claimed that he does not support
independence from China any more, and instead wants only cultural
autonomy. His position
basically boils down to a “leave the lamas” alone position, leaving
political and military power in the hands of China. This is by no means a popular
position among many Tibetans, most of whom seem to favor complete
independence. Even the
parliament of the Dalai Lama’s government-in-exile has at times refused
to endorse his position on accepting only limited autonomy.
There
has also been conflict between the Dalai Lama and many independence
activists over what type of tactics to use. While historically the Dalai Lamas have had no qualms
about maintaining armies and using violent force, and even the current
Dalai Lama gave his blessing to armed resistance against China in the
past, he today calls for only non-violent tactics. During the recent uprising the Dalai
Lama went so far as to denounce most of the protests, and has
threatened to resign his political post in the government-in-exile
(though not his spiritual post) if further violence occurs. Many Tibetan activists on the
ground, particularly among the youth, seem to view the Dalai Lama’s
pacifism as detached from reality, and as having failed to gain any
concessions from China so far.
The
Dalai Lame continues to be a popular figure, by most accounts, among
the average Tibetan, but his authority is not universally
accepted. Nor is his direction
automatically followed. It
should also be said that in talking about some of the more brutal
aspects of Tibet’s past under the Dalai Lamas, including himself, the
current Dalai Lama has expressed some remorse. In reading the Dalai Lama’s
writings, and listening to his speeches, we certainly seem to have a
case of a ruler who sounds a lot better now that he is out of power
than when he was in. But at the
same time, he remains wedded to at least a partial return to Tibet’s
dark ages.
What
is To Be Done?
Socialist
Action gives no political support to the Dalai Lama [who in 1996
described his views as “half-Marxist, half-Buddhist], and certainly has
no nostalgia for the brutal feudal like system that existed in Tibet
under the rule of the Dalai Lamas.
But we believe that the Tibetan people deserve the right to
self-determination, up to and including full independence. The Tibetan
people have a unique history and culture, together with their own
language and national consciousness.
China’s
claims to Tibet basically boil down to the fact that for most of the
rule of the Dalai Lamas they accepted that they were vassals of the
Chinese emperors. While this is
the type of claim one would expect from an imperialist nation, it’s
laughable that China’s Stalinist rulers, who call themselves Marxists,
would use such an argument.
While the Chinese Stalinists claim that the right of self-determination
only applies to oppressed nationalities being occupied by advanced
capitalist nations, we believe that the right of self-determination
belongs to all oppressed nationalities, period. China has no right to determine the
future of Tibet, only the Tibetan people have the right – in the same
way that only the Chinese people have the right to determine China’s
future.
The
issue of Tibetan self-determination though is complicated by the fact
that many imperialist powers, the U.S. first among them, claim to also
be supporters of Tibetan freedom.
Seeking to grasp onto any club that will help it in its
economic, political and military competition with China, the U.S.
ruling class has hypocritically wrapped itself in a number of righteous
causes when it comes to China – from the right of religious minorities
to practice their beliefs, to even the right of workers to form
independent trade unions! It
also must be said that many of the liberals and celebrities in the West
who have become champions of Tibet do so from a position of anti-communism,
and support for their idealized perception of Tibet’s old feudal like
system.
The
fact that these dubious characters though have jumped on board the
bandwagon of Tibet does not negate the rights of the Tibetan people to
self-determination. While it
would be a mistake to make common cause in any way with the U.S. State
Department and CIA on one hand, or the Dalai Lama’s project to revive
Tibet’s dark ages on the other, it is right and necessary for workers
and progressives the world over to defend the Tibetan people’s right to
self-determination. National
liberation movements often take on religious garb, and they likewise
sometimes attract the poisonous support of misc. capitalist governments
as part of the imperialists’ chess games to gain advantage over their
rivals. But that does not
negate the basic democratic right of oppressed peoples to their own
state, and control over their own destiny. The role of Marxists is to expose the false support that
the U.S. government and the Dalai Lama, et al are offering the people
of Tibet, and to support the Tibetan workers and farmers in their just
fight to determine their own future.
In that spirit, we support the protesters in Tibet, we support
their call for Tibetan independence, and we call for China’s immediate
withdrawal.
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